Israel Matzav

Wall Street Journal blasts Obami on Israel

In an editorial on Monday, the Wall Street Journal blasted the Obama administration's behavior toward Israel over the weekend (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).

The subsequent escalation by Mrs. Clinton was clearly intended as a highly public rebuke to the Israelis, but its political and strategic logic is puzzling. The U.S. needs Israel's acquiescence in the Obama Administration's increasingly drawn-out efforts to halt Iran's nuclear bid through diplomacy or sanctions. But Israel's restraint is measured in direct proportion to its sense that U.S. security guarantees are good. If Israel senses that the Administration is looking for any pretext to blow up relations, it will care much less how the U.S. might react to a military strike on Iran.

As for the West Bank settlements, it is increasingly difficult to argue that their existence is the key obstacle to a peace deal with the Palestinians. Israel withdrew all of its settlements from Gaza in 2005, only to see the Strip transform itself into a Hamas statelet and a base for continuous rocket fire against Israeli civilians.

Israeli anxieties about America's role as an honest broker in any diplomacy won't be assuaged by the Administration's neuralgia over this particular housing project, which falls within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries and can only be described as a "settlement" in the maximalist terms defined by the Palestinians. Any realistic peace deal will have to include a readjustment of the 1967 borders and an exchange of territory, a point formally recognized by the Bush Administration prior to Israel's withdrawal from Gaza. If the Obama Administration opts to transform itself, as the Europeans have, into another set of lawyers for the Palestinians, it will find Israeli concessions increasingly hard to come by.

That may be the preferred outcome for Israel's enemies, both in the Arab world and the West, since it allows them to paint Israel as the intransigent party standing in the way of "peace." Why an Administration that repeatedly avers its friendship with Israel would want that is another question.

Ah, but that's the key: The Obama administration doesn't repeatedly aver its friendship with Israel. In fact, last summer, the President said that disagreements between the US and Israel were a good thing.

A private meeting Monday held to ease tensions between the White House and American Jewish leaders included a pointed exchange as President Obama said public disagreements between the U.S. government and Israel are useful in the pursuit of Middle East peace, several participants said.

The president's remarks, surprising to some in the room, came as he was questioned about a perceived distance between his administration and Israel -- specifically in his insistence that Israel halt all settlement construction in the West Bank.

...

Obama, according to participants, said his approach would build more credibility with Arabs, and he criticized the Bush administration policy of unwavering agreement with Israel as ineffective.

The real question isn't why the Obama administration attacked Israel. In a way, I'm relieved that they did because it seems to have shut up all the fools who said Obama was pro-Israel. He's clearly not and neither is his Secretary of State. The real question is who authorized Joe Biden to say that the fight was over on Thursday in Tel Aviv. Or was that just Biden freelancing again?

This administration is determined to ruin America's alliance with Israel just as it is determined to ruin America's alliances with Britain, Honduras, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Colombia and several other countries. It is determined to remake America's alliances to be more appropriate to a Third World country. And it's determined to degrade America's military strength and morale by cutting its defense budget and denying American exceptionalism.

Other than that, how was your trip to the Middle East Mr. Biden?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:14 PM